It started with one video.
A staff member on Lu Jingyan's photoshoot team, perhaps seeking a few seconds of internet fame, uploaded a short clip to a gossip forum: *Leng Xuanmo, CEO of the mighty Leng Corporation, stepping onto the rooftop set of Golden Age Entertainment.*
He wasn't supposed to be there. She wasn't expecting him. But the way the camera caught their frozen moment, it painted a different story.
And social media did the rest.
*#LengPresidentCrashesSetForLuJingyan* *#FallenPrincessTargetsPowerAgain*
*#LuJingyanTryingToClimbBack?*
Within an hour, her name trended across Country C.
#Wow. She fell from being Country F's fashion darling to chasing CEOs for screen time?"#
#"Didn't she vanish after her family collapsed? Guess this is the new strategy—seduce your way back to relevance."#
#Leng Xuanmo must be blind. She's clearly using him."#
#"Another heiress who thinks her beauty is currency. Sad, really."#
In just one morning, Lu Jingyan's rising image as a poised and graceful comeback queen turned into a cautionary tale of "desperation."
Inside Golden Age Entertainment, Hua Shu slammed her phone on the table.
"Trash," she snapped. "Absolute trash."
Mei Xiaotong, pale with frustration, sat in front of her laptop, her hands shaking. "They're calling her a social climber. A woman who's... chasing men for clout!"
"And they're eating it up," Hua Shu growled. "Because it's easier to believe a woman's using a man than building her name with her own damn spine."
Lu Jingyan entered the room quietly. The moment she saw their faces, she already knew.
Mei Xiaotong looked up. "It's bad, Jingyan."
"I know," she replied softly.
"They're saying you're trying to get back to the top through... him," Mei whispered, ashamed even to voice it.
Jingyan walked toward the window, her eyes on the skyline.
"They don't know the truth," she murmured. "So they invent one."
"Should we deny it?" Hua Shu asked. "Release a statement?"
Jingyan shook her head.
"And what will it say? That I didn't seduce him? That I didn't invite him? The people who want to hate me will twist it either way."
Hua Shu exhaled. "So we let them believe you're clinging to Leng Xuanmo?"
"No," Jingyan said, her voice sharpening. "We let them believe I don't need anyone. That I built this name myself, and I'll defend it."
Across town, in the boardroom of the Leng Corporation, Leng Shiyan was seething.
"She's being dragged through the mud, Xuanmo," he snapped.
Leng Xuanmo sat silently, replaying the moment in his head—her stunned expression, her silence, the sharp shift in atmosphere as all eyes turned toward them.
Li Zeyan entered quietly, tablet in hand.
"It's not looking good," he said. "Online sentiment has turned. Most believe Miss Lu is... using your name."
"Let them," Xuanmo murmured.
"What?" Shiyan glared.
Xuanmo stood, jaw clenched. "Let them believe what they want. I didn't go there for the media. I went because I had to see her."
"You gave them fuel. And now she's burning for it."
Leng Xuanmo's face darkened. "Then I'll put out the fire."
Meanwhile, online continued its tirade
#Watch. In two months, she'll be on his arm at every event.#
#"I used to like her, but this is pathetic. Trying to climb her way back through a man?#
#Why doesn't she just accept she's irrelevant now?#
There were kinder comments—those who defended her grace, her refusal to respond, her quiet strength—but they were drowned by the mob.
And Lu Jingyan stayed silent.
That evening, she sat with Mei Xiaotong in her apartment, a glass of tea in her hand.
"They'll never see the truth, will they?" Mei asked.
"Not unless I show them."
"And how do you plan to do that?"
Jingyan looked up, her expression calm, determined. "By becoming someone so powerful... they'll choke on every word they said about me."
At that moment, she wasn't just the fallen heiress of the Lu family. She was something more dangerous—
A woman who had nothing left to lose.
And that was when the real story began.